Breathe
by SlvrSoleAlchmst1
Summary: [Hinted shounen ai: Matt x Mello] Speaking Mello’s name out loud made him burn. He’d been injected with a deadly dose of venom in black leather, and now he was writhing in his death throes. The trouble was that he liked it.


Matt was outside, chain-smoking his way through another attack of his failing nerves. The buildings looked like monolithic towers of judgment, belittling him, and the last rays of daylight pierced the sky around them to create stern silhouettes. He dropped his spent cigarette to the pavement and scuffed it out with his heel, making sure to grind his frustration away with plenty of brutality.

Three seconds later Matt knew that he was still on edge, and the realization only served to unnerve him more.

He fished another cancer causing agent from his pocket and reached up to flick on the lighter beneath it. Matt inhaled deeply, letting the smoke fill his lungs, and he thought about how the habit was killing him. The notion didn't faze him any more now than it had when he was still just a bum of a youth, lighting up every afternoon and watching the smoke make patterns in the air. He'd known all along the dangers of smoking. He'd known the day he picked up his first pack in a shady gas station, during a road trip with his cronies long before Mello showed up to get him tangled in the wild notebook hunt. It had never affected him much. Matt couldn't remember the reason _why_ he'd started smoking, though, and _that_ was what bugged him.

But it didn't matter now. Matt was a smoker for better or worse, and if the cycle was killing him, he wouldn't try to stop it. In fact, with the way Matt's life was currently balancing like a bad circus acrobat… There were myriad other things that might kill him faster than his cigarettes. Such an ironic fucking world. Matt let out a wry snigger and sucked harder on the lethal object between his fingers.

He ought to have known that Mello wouldn't bend to anybody. Their argument an hour ago had proved again that Matt could never win, and it had left him feeling like shit as usual. But that wasn't really the problem, and Matt knew it, so he wouldn't waste time trying to console himself. What he had to acknowledge was that Mello was simply Mello, and that the chocolate loving fiend would never change.

Not that Matt really wanted him to.

"You've got to stop doing this to me, Mello," Matt breathed, and the wreaths of smoke that rode the words off his lips looked orange through the tint of his goggles.

Speaking Mello's name out loud made him burn. The feeling was poisoning him from the inside. He'd been injected with a deadly dose of venom in black leather, and now he was writhing in his death throes. The trouble was that he liked it.

Suddenly Matt couldn't help himself. He doubled over in a fit of hysteric laughter, cackling with what was more twisted epiphany than true amusement. He held his cigarette away from him in one gloved hand, pressing the other against his knee for balance lest he topple over in his strange state of realization. Here Matt was, worrying about death by cigarettes, death by mafia gangsters, death by Kira or even the SPK, when really, he ought to have been worrying about death by Mello. He felt sick.

Once Matt had gained control of himself, he took another drag and leaned his head against the alley wall of crumbled brick.

But really, what was he supposed to do? He couldn't think of a damn thing. He let his mind go hazy, let images flash and spark across the back of his closed eyelids.

Memories of Mello sitting spider-legged on the chair in front of the computer, hacking into Near's files with a smirk that said he'd won. Mello, with that ridiculous domineering swagger of his. He clomped around in his boots and boasted leather and chains, and lacing in places where all Matt wanted to do was seize him and untie everything — if only to see how hard Mello would punch him as a result. He pictured Mello out cold on the couch at three in the morning, innocent only in his sleep. Those stupid crosses on his neck and right wrist, because Mello still believed in a god that Matt had given up on long ago. Mello in a frothy rage because _Kira_ was _not_ God, damn it, and he was going to find that fucking notebook so he could prove it.

No matter what Mello was doing, whether it was eating his chocolate or ranting about Near, Mello was uninhibited by the dregs of emotion. He felt neither pity, nor regret, nor that torturous throbbing called love. He was all ambition, all barking commands and quick violent outbursts. Matt could only stand helplessly by and hope to hell that nothing he did would give him away. What he'd never tell Mello was that all those crazy things – all those psychotic, stupid things Mello did – drove him mad with a longing he couldn't explain.

"Fuck," Matt erupted despite himself, slamming the edge of his fist onto the rough brick and then hissing in pain when he found that it stung through his gloves.

And so it was back to his cigarette, which by now was nearly gone. Matt lit up another automatically. What was it now, the fifth one since he'd fled outside? It was a wonder his lungs could function at all. His pack was almost gone. Luckily, though, those long, deliberate breaths could wipe away the uneasiness that slipped into Matt's mind every time he thought of Mello. It was exactly why he smoked these days. The inhales purged Matt of his desire to clutch Mello to him and steal a reckless kiss. The exhales soothed him and forced him to forget his passion. Next time Mello yelled at him for smoking, Matt would know where to lay blame in his own defense.

_It's your fault, Mello. You drive me to my breaking point_._ Do you even care?_

Of course not. Mello wanted the notebook. Matt wanted Mello. Near and the SPK wanted Kira and Kira wanted to play god and L was dead and there was no room for confessing the feelings that were going to eat him alive, because that's just how life was, and tough shit for Matt.

Matt sighed. The cigarette came up to hang between his sullen lips, and he slid down the wall to drape his arms over his knees and wait. Wait for his desire to ebb, like his life force ebbed as he kept on smoking. He wondered vaguely if his habit was like Mello's chocolate addiction somehow. Then again, at least Mello's candy intake wasn't going to kill him.

Fuck it, though. Matt's shoulders shook in a silent, bitter laugh. He'd sit here, mindlessly reducing his health points every time he inhaled. And oh, how it hurt to inhale. Every breath ached with all the things he didn't dare say or do in Mello's stifling presence. His chest would collapse and his throat would contract, and he'd fumble and falter until finally something stupid came out of his mouth to veil his lust and satisfy Mello, but not him. No, Matt could never satisfy himself. This hell was thanks to Mello, though the blonde didn't know it and never would if Matt had any say in the matter. He knew there was no _real_ way to lay blame for feelings that had seemingly bred and sprung up overnight like mushrooms. Still, Matt wouldn't risk a powder keg. Their current relationship stood on oil-slick floorboards as it was.

Matt tapped the end of the butt that listed between his limp fingers and watched the ash fall to the ground. With any luck, his fucking cigarettes would finish him off before he had a chance to crack. It was either that or let his feelings for Mello rip him apart.

He reached for one last cigarette, but the pack was empty. Matt stared at it until his vision blurred. At last he crumpled the box in his fist and tossed it at the metal dumpster to his left.

Maybe he should just fucking quit.

_A/N: This was edited by __**Jiia-chan**__, my lovely beta of all things Death Note related, whom I love because she makes fun of me for writing "god damned" instead of "god damn" like people actually say when speaking slang. XD_


End file.
